


Two birds, one stone

by dittyditto (Triple_A)



Series: Fast Little Nonsenses [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: As in like, Gavin is a Thunderbird but shh that's a secwet uwu, Human AU, Human Upgraded Connor | RK900, Hunting, Illegal Activities, Kidnapping, M/M, Perkins is a Poacher, Poaching, Rider is a Park Ranger, Tasers, Thunderbird AU, Tranquilizers, Upgraded Connor | RK900 is called Rider, also, and so is Gavin for that matter, except he's more of a crunchier park ranger, if you litter he will kill you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-05-29 13:11:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19400986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triple_A/pseuds/dittyditto
Summary: “No, I don’t think I will. You remember what I told you I was looking for, R? Back at the bar?” Of course Rider remembered. There was an itch in his palms, the sign of a coming storm. “A big, black bird. Bigger than any raven or crow, bigger than any eagle. One that screeches like thunder and makes hurricanes in its wings.”He finally dares to glance over at Gavin, a scowl smoldering on his scarred face. There’s a brief flash of gold in those gray eyes.: :In which Gavin is a Thunderbird posing in a human form, and Rider is a park ranger, trying to make friends in his new job....and Perkins is the hunter who's determined to make a quick buck hunting rarities.





	Two birds, one stone

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt taken from New Era discord server:  
> https://discord.gg/mFJsCsn

The de-trapping process wasn’t supposed to have gone so wrong. They were expecting small traps, little snares for foxes or coyotes and nets for hawks.

They hadn’t expected a net the size of a small car to drop from the sky onto an unwitting Gavin, weighted down with lead weights and knocking the man to the ground, making him thrash and curse against the leaf litter as Rider drops the small snare he had just disarmed and rushes over.

“Shit, Gav, Gav, are you alright?” And Gavin nods in response, looking more angry than scared now. Rider could smell that familiar faint crackle of ozone in the air.

“Fuck, yeah. Just-god, who the hell had the time to set this shit up? And what were they trying to catch?” He reaches into his belt and withdraws a small camping knife with a serrated edge, reaching up to saw at the knots.. The blade clinks again the black weights. “Fuckin’ hell. Help me out, will ya?”

“Of course, of course.” Rider goes over to the edge of the net, and tries to pull up-only to be met with surprising resistance. Crouching down, he sees spikes, heavy and metallic, tied to the net and buried deep in the earth. Whoever set this trap really didn’t want the prey to get away, but Rider couldn’t think of anything big or valuable enough that lived in these woods to warrant such extreme measures…except, maybe-

The thought is cut off by a the hard end of a gun, pressing against the back of his head and making him tense in place, and a yelp of anger and surprise from Gavin. Without moving, Rider could see several pairs of black boots moving in his periphery, legs clad in camo. Something stunk of cigar smoke.

“I’m going to have to stop you right there, Ranger.” The man behind him drawls in a smooth voice, and Rider recognizes it. Not enough place a name, but a memory of the bar back in town, and a lot of bitten-off retorts and a rejected job offer.

“Perkins.” Gavin growls, and the memory clicks. A dark-haired man, weaselly and smug, offering Nines a license as a hunter and a chance at what he called, ‘fast cash for a strong fellow’. “This is state-protected grounds. You’re not allowed here.”

“Aren’t I, now?” Perkins replies calmly. “I’m not looking for an animal on your registry, Reed, so don’t you worry. I’m just gonna take what I want and go.”

Rider rises slowly, still feeling the gun follow his movements and poke at the small of his back. “Perkins,” He says slowly, as he casts his gaze around him. Three other hunters are there, ugly and burly and with bananas over the bottom of their faces. “It isn’t hunting season. And your license has been revoked. Leave now before a ban from a hunting rifle is the least of your worries.”

“No, I don’t think I will. You remember what I told you I was looking for, R? Back at the bar?” Of course Rider remembered, and he fought to keep his gaze from looking at Gavin. There was an itch in his palms, the sign of a coming storm. “A big, black bird. Bigger than any raven or crow, bigger than any eagle. One that screeches like thunder and makes hurricanes in its wings.”

“I remember telling you to take up poetry.”

Perkins chuckles, and the gun presses a little harder to his back. “I regret not trying harder to get you on my team. I could’ve done with that wit of yours. But, regardless, I’m still looking for that bird. A Thunderbird.”

There’s not crackle of thunder to go with the utterance, but Rider can feel it under his skin, a dangerous rumble of fury and fear, and he finally dares to glance over at Gavin, a scowl smoldering on his scarred face. There’s a brief flash of gold in those gray eyes.

“Hey, fuckface. I don’t think you’re aware, but you’re chasing a kid’s nighttime story. A fuckin’ myth.” Gavin sneers. “So quit wasting everyone’s time and fuck off. I’ve already alerted park security, you really think your ‘outstanding reputation’ is gonna hold after cops find you in off-public grounds?” Perkin's men shuffle slightly, and Rider can see them sideeye at each other. They were doubting, and that was a strike of hope.

“I think you haven’t gotten any better at bluffing since the last time I saw you. Charlie, take his knife.” One of the bigger hunters walks over and shoves Gavin face-first into the ground, reaching for the knife. Gavin jerks up, but barely manages to do more than graze the man's wrist before it’s plucked from his grip. “I know you know about it, Reed, I've seen the feathers you stick in your hat. Tell me before your face gets rearranged more than it is.”

The hunter-Charlie-braces a knee against Gavin’s back, one hand gripping his dark hair through the net and jerking his head up, while the other presses the tip of the knife against the bridge of Gavin’s nose, tracing out the scar. The sight of it makes Rider’s heart jump, and he twitches, frustrated beyond belief with the shotgun still pointing leisurely at him.

Gavin meets Rider’s eye with one of his shitty, characteristic grins. “Don’t interfere, rookie.” He warns, hissing slightly when the knife bites further into his skin. “He can’t beat out of me what I don’t know. And this’ll just be an assault charge on top of everything else.”

“Gavin-“ Rider twitches again. “I can’t just watch you get hurt. Just-just-“ _tell them something so they’ll go,_ he thinks silently, trying to convey that with a stare. Give them a red herring. 

“You guys are sweet.” Perkins yawns. “But I agree with R, over here. Just tell me what I want to know, and no harm, no foul, right? 

_Please, Gavin, don’t say anything stupid-_ Rider begs silently.

“Over my fucking carcass, Perkins.” Gavin snarls, and Rider mentally slaps himself in the face. A single bead of red drips down his cheek, and something rumbles distantly in the sky.

The other hunters glance at each other, and Rider can tell even Perkins is somewhat unsettled by the statement, judging by the way he shifts his footing in the litter. For a brief moment, Rider thinks that Gavin’s fool comment might’ve unsettled them enough to deter them, and feels a brief flash of hope.

And then Perkins says, “Bravo, Roger. Hold him.” And before Rider knows it, his arms are being held in vice grips, digging into his upper arms through his jacket. Perkins circles around to Rider’s front, waving a hand casually at Charlie, who pulls the knife away from Gavin.

As Rider watches, Perkins holsters his shotgun, letting it hang on its belt across his back, and withdraws from his jacket a black, rectangular…something, with two metal prongs. “Did you know, R,” He muses, turning it in his hands, and Rider realizes that it's a taser and feels a cold chill rush up his spine. “That the Thunderbird is rumored to have control of lightning?”

Gavin seemed to understand the implications as well, and starts struggling anew beneath the weight of the man and the net and succeeding more in getting more restrained. “Perkins, you dirty fucker-leave him alone, he doesn’t know anything about your damn bird!”

“Maybe not.” Perkins hums, and he squeezes the taser. Blue sparks dance before Rider’s eyes, and he bite the inside of his cheek to keep his face neutral. “But you do, Reed. And surely, even a human life matters more to you than some ‘fairy tale’, hm?”

“I swear to fucking god, if you fucking hurt him-“

“What, like this?” He jabs the electric points at Rider’s abdomen.

Rider bucks, convulsing in the grip of the two men, a silent scream freezing in his lungs as pain is focused on one point on his navel, his ears filled with buzzing and crackling. It hurts, it hurts in a burning sort of way that arcs outwards from the point of contact, touching on every inch of him with a red-hot knife. Distantly, he can hear Gavin screaming.

A brief pause, a respite, as Perkins pulls the taser away and Rider slumps, legs trembling in the effort to keep him upright, sucking in air like a drowning man. His muscles hurt and shake like he just ran a marathon, and there’s a lingering ache in his belly.

“Leave him alone! Perkins, please, fuck, I swear I don’t know anything, just leave him alone!” Gavin screams, thrashing furiously. For a brief moment, he manages to buck Charlie off, but only that.

Perkins eyes him over. “You swear you don’t know anything?”

“Fuck, I swear it on my family’s name, okay? I don’t know anything about that damn bird,” He sobs, and Rider struggles to lift his head to look at him. “Just-just leave him alone, leave him the fuck out of this. Please.”

“…Yeah, I don’t believe you.” And the electric fangs descend on Rider again and he manages a scream this time, all animal and pain as his back arcs like a bow and he howls at the sky, the gray rolling clouds that he can’t see behind the blinding white.

Gavin screams again, but this time it’s deeper. And it’s carried on a current of drumbeats and crumbling rocks, and Rider can barely comprehend it as the point of contact is broken and he goes limp again, watching Perkins be bowled over by Charlie’s thrown body. Shaking all over, he turns his head to look at Gavin.

Except Gavin’s gone, and in his place is a bird, huge and dark and black with feathers shot through with gold and brown, beating its wings and burning the net away with lightning that crackles off its back. Its much, much bigger than the last time Rider had seen it, at least twelve feet in wingspan if his burnt-out mind can hazy a guess.

And it's _furious_.

The two hunters holding him drop Rider, letting him collapse on the ground as they hastily back off, rifles hoisted and leveled on the bird, the Thunderbird, _Gavin_ , and Rider barely has enough air in his lungs to scream, to tell them to stand down, anything. Bullets ricochet, the gunshots hardly audible over the thunder, diverted from their path by the net of tiny electric sparks over Gavin's feathers.

He doesn’t need to. In the edge of his vision, he sees Perkins stand up, screaming with hoarse hysteria. “Stand down! Don’t shoot, don’t you dare _fucking_ shoot!”, his hat is gone and there's a look of dazed wonder on his face, hair being whipped across his face by the sudden storm. “My god.” He whispers. “The Thunderbird.”

Rider shoves himself onto his elbows, his muscles still shivering and weak. “Gavin?” He whines, and golden eyes look down at him, softening from its fury to something softer, more familiar. Wings, huge and dark and smelling like pine and _Gavin_ fold over him like a tent, shielding him. Even the smell of ozone lessens slightly, receding from the point of making Rider’s eyes water.

Gavin opens his beak and chitters softly back. _It’s okay. It’s still me,_ he seems to say, and Rider feels a rush of relief. He’d never seen Gavin like this- _”I try to stay small. My bigger forms aren’t…my favorite, let’s say. Harder to control. Harder to remember myself.”_ -and he was afraid that Gavin had been lost. He could cry if he didn’t think his tear ducts had gotten fried.

The relief is short lived. A rope suddenly loops around Gavin’s beak, and he screeches in time with the roar of a lightning crack. One of the hunters holds the other end and tugs, and Gavin lunges with open jaws before a different hunter lassos his upper beak, dragging him in the other direction.

“Heads up!” Perkins calls from behind, and Rider hears the snap of a gun being fired, and suddenly there are bright red darts buried among the dark feathers of Gavin’s neck, and he screams loud enough to rattle the whole forest.

“No!” Rider roars, and he lunges, aiming to pull out the darts before whatever they were laced with could do its job. Nothing doing, as someone grabbed him by the collar and dragged him down again, stabbing the taser into his side and making him curl up again with a yell. He could only watch in dazed horror, as Gavin sways, topples, and falls, eyes drooping and barely managing to stay open.

But still focused on Rider, as Gavin squawks weakly once, twice, and then no more.

Distantly, Rider is aware of the other men, high-giving and cheering, as he drags himself over and lays a hand on the side of Gavin’s neck, palm poked by soft pinfeathers. “Gav…Gavin?”

No response.

A boot steps on his arm in his field of vision, knocking It away from Gavin as Perkins crouches down to look him in the face. “Don’t worry, R. We’ll take good care of him.” Perkins croons. Behind him, his goons lace and cross rope over Gavin’s form, pulling tightly enough to displace the feathers. “Now take a breather, alright?”

He lifts the taser and taps it to the base of Rider’s neck, and the last thing the Ranger sees before darkness is the slit of gold of Gavin’s eye, and a faint arc of lightning in the sky, with no thunder.

**Author's Note:**

> aw, fuck. ah canny beleev i dun this
> 
> i....don't know where i was going with this when it started so don't ask me how it ends ok
> 
> for now it functions as a one shot, with emphasis on "for now"


End file.
